Australia’s most comprehensive study of the lives of young people, the Life Patterns project, has found that Gen X and Gen Y report similar life aims, share the same expectations of having more than one career in life and both understand that full-time, permanent employment is difficult to attain.

Both groups have experienced recession at the same age and Gen Y does appear to have learned some lessons from Gen X, in particular about expecting uncertainty in their career. As a result, both generations understand the need to be professionally independent, adopt a flexible approach to their careers and value lifelong learning highly.

The study has been following a group of people born around 1973 since they left school in 1991. In 2006, a new cohort of Australian students in their final year of schooling was recruited to the project. This is the first set of findings comparing the Gen X and the Gen Y groups to be released.

Professor Johanna Wyn, Director of the Youth Research Centre at the University of Melbourne’s Graduate School of Education, leads the study. She commented: "The similarities that we have observed between these two groups is related to the fact that Gen X had to adjust to labour market uncertainty and to spending a long time becoming qualified - and to juggling other aspects of life.

"In many respects, things are no different for Gen Y. Young people are still required to undertake post-secondary education (often juggling this with employment) and they also need to be very proactive in order to find jobs.  These circumstances mean that Gens X and Y are more similar that the media would have us think."

The study also found that young people are working very long days and weeks, depend on high levels of family support in the years immediately after school, are willing to travel long distances to study or work in order to remain living at home and still feel under-prepared to deal with life after school.

Those from wealthier urban areas are still the most likely to attend University and have a gap year, with those from less well off backgrounds who do make it University more likely to discontinue their studies or change course.

For more information on the Youth Research Centre please visit www.education.unimelb.edu...